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Interview with Vault Dweller at GoHa.Ru

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://forums.goha.ru/showthread_0_0_t1199608

1 One of the things I liked the most about AoD was the way you introduced the player to the game lore and history. Hints were scattered all around the game, sometimes requiring a couple of playthroughs to learn about a single history moment, while still questioning the sources.

Are you planning to introduce the Ship’s history and past event the same way? Or use a narrator?


The overall setup is different, which calls for a different approach. In AoD the past was long forgotten yet still relevant to the main quest. As one of the reviews said, “it plays out like noir in that you are the detective, piecing together what really happened from differing accounts...”.

In The New World the past is neither forgotten nor relevant. If I have to draw a parallel, it would be the American Civil War. Everyone knows what happened (at least the big picture) and nobody really cares (except for the historians and reenactors) because they have bigger things to worry about: jobs, bills to pay, and things that are happening today.

So we won’t dwell on the past either and will focus on “today’s problems”. As for introducing the setting, we’ll do it in steps to ease people into it.

Step 1 – the old school questionnaire when you create your character:

The Ship was launched by a neo-Christian Conglomerate dedicated to establishing a Christian colony on a distant world. Fifty thousand volunteers had boarded the ship, becoming the First Generation, the foundation of the future colony. True believers in the Mission who sacrificed much, they demanded the same obedience to the laws of the Mission and God from their children.

Unfortunately, the generations that followed didn’t have the same burning need to sacrifice and suffer for the good of the future colony. Dissatisfaction led to mutiny, mutiny to an open revolt against the perceived tyranny, the revolt to a civil war. While the mutineers succeeded in striking down the old order, they failed to eradicate it completely. The Ship had suffered extensive damage but remained operational.

Three main factions emerged from the ashes of the old order: the Protectors of the Mission, The Brotherhood of Liberty, and the Church of the Elect. They offer different answers and different salvations to those who’d join their cause.


You’ve always thoughts that:

1.Rebelling against an established order was a mistake. It may not have been perfect but it was better than chaos that followed.
2.The mutineers did the right thing. Why should entire generations be chained to the beliefs of their ancestors?
3.It was God’s will for the old order to fall. The mutineers were his unwitting agents who thought they acted on their own, but it was His Plan all along.
4.The more things change the more they stay the same, so why worry about it?


The questionnaire will define your character’s beliefs and introduce the setting’s key aspects and events that your character should know.

Step 2 – in-game conversations, introducing lesser but still important aspects:

/gun store

“Well,” says the man, scratching his stubble, “the Mutiny drained the ammunition depots pretty fast and that was what, a hundred years ago? The Ship was provisioned with weapons to secure the future colony, not to fight a civil war.”

“So there are no energy cells left?”

“I’m sure there are a few cells left here and there, but they’re worth a lot of money, so only a fool would use them to charge a gun. Fortunately, there are less fancy but still effective alternatives.”


/medical bay

“Your organs are a product of evolution; their performance is limited by your body’s natural needs. The implants don’t have such limitations and the only restricting factor is how many implants you can handle.”

“What do you mean?”

“The implants tax your body and once you hit that natural limit, your body will reject all further attempts. Few people are tough enough to handle more than five implants so choose carefully. Once an implant is in, it can’t be removed without killing you.”

“Why?”

“Suppose you get your hands on Exo-Spine. It reinforces your vertebral column and taps into your spinal cord. The machine does its work and now you’re stronger and capable of feats you couldn’t even dream of before. A few months later you decide that you’re better off without it but the implant is connected to every vertebrae and spinal nerve. If we remove it, at best you’ll be paralyzed. At worst…”


Step 3 – key characters’ intro, same as in AoD:

Rumor has it that Captain Braxton once served a higher power, that in the days before his crisis of faith and the subsequent falling out with the Church of the Elect he was known as Faithful Gunner Jeremiah Braxton. Speculation about why he left is abundant, but as is often the case no story is more compelling than the others.

Backed up by a few like-minded men and picking up more willing recruits along the way, Braxton left the Church behind and ended up in the Pit, a place where reliable fighting men are always in demand. Around the time of his arrival, the Brotherhood had started showing a keen interest in the Pit, eager to establish a foothold there. Braxton and his newly christened Regulators offered the good people of the Pit their services and after much debate they were hired to drive the Brotherhood’s men out, which was accomplished with brutal efficiency.


2 The most common complain about AoD that I've stumbled upon is that it's all about min-maxing. You either have a "perfect" build or you cannot do this, that and that. Many people want to get as much content as possible with a single character, which requires the above mentioned "perfect" build. What are your thoughts on it and how do you plan to deal with it in The New World?"

These are two separate issues. When a player struggles to beat the first few opponents, he assumes – incorrectly – that the only way to beat game is to max the physical stats at the expense of everything else and put all skill points into two skills (weapon and defense). Stats and skills do matter, of course, but tactics matter more.

The max content build is a more complex issue, driven by the player’s desire to get more content in the course of one game, which requires a whole lot of meta-gaming and a carefully researched build, calibrated down to the last skill point. Needless to say it’s not a fun way to play the game.

There are two ways to fix it: either remove most checks, leaving only “cosmetic” checks that give you minor rewards but ultimately change nothing OR replace manual distribution of skill points with an ‘increase by use’ system.

Naturally, the former isn’t an option for us, but the latter is something that fits our overall design (and the party-based setup) better. Now your skills will be determined by your actions and choices not arbitrary distribution of the skill points.

Instead of counting how many times you did something, we’ll assign a certain value (let’s call it learning points) to each activity (attacking, killing, fixing, sneaking, convincing, lying, etc). So killing a tough enemy or repairing a reactor will net you more points than killing a weakling or fixing a toaster. Basically, it will work the same way as XP but go directly toward raising the skill that did all the work.

3 While playing AoD with a "full-combat" build (all points in combat skills, zero in social) I had no trouble fighting my way through the game and killing anyone I wanted. Combat in general became a walk in the park, except for a few late-game encounters. Now, I get that the game was designed to have the hybrid builds the hardest to play as, but what's your view on that in The New World?

How difficult would the combat playthrough be for the combat-oriented party with as little social skills as possible? Will it give us a challenge?


For every person who was able to kill everything that moved there were hundreds of players who struggled and a few dozen who failed to kill anything at all. The #1 complaint is “combat is too difficult”, so we aren’t in a rush to make The New World more difficult.

However, the nature of the setting does call for more challenging fights since you’ll be going against factions with plenty of firepower, which means you’ll be outgunned and outnumbered most of the time. In practical terms, it means more fights like the mining outpost and fewer fights like [insert fights you managed to beat without nearly running out of your HPs].

4 Regarding lore: I get that the game won't be dwelling on past but would we be able to write down a loosely-accurate timeline from ship's launch till the game events? It might be important to people who like this kind of stuff and details.

You’ll have a good idea of what happened and why. Different people and factions will have different perspectives on the events but the events themselves won’t be shrouded in mystery.

5 Speaking of difficulty, will TNW feature different difficulty settings like Dungeon Rats did? Maybe an Ironman mode for the most hardcore players?

Personally, I prefer a single difficulty mode (the one the game is tailored to) but it’s not something we have to decide right now. Ironman – absolutely.

6 Back to AoD, the uniqueness of each playthrough is based on the fact that the player character is only good at one thing (meta-hybrid builds aside). But TNW is a party-based RPG and we as players will have an option to assemble a party of specialists: a fighter, a talker, an explorer and so on. How would you make us want to replay it for the 10th time? :)

That’s easy – choices.

While your party would be able to handle more than a single character would, when it comes to choices and picking sides, you’re still limited to one outcome. So if we do a good job with the setting and story, you’d still want to see how things would play out if you make different choices.

Keep in mind that since we’re going with an ‘increase by use’ system, creating specialists won’t be as easy as simply spending skill points on whatever you see fit. If you want your infiltration specialist to be good, you’d have to provide opportunities to practice that craft – at the expense of other skills.

For example, in one of the early quests you’re tasked with acquiring energy cores from one of the scavenger crews. Naturally, you can kill them all (everyone’s combat skills go up), bullshit them (your talker’s skills go up), kill the leader with a critical strike (your CS skill goes up), or sneak inside, pick the lock on the strongbox, and get the cores without raising suspicions (your infiltrator’s skills go up). Before you ask, you won’t be able to sneak in, steal what you need, THEN kill them all to get max points.

7 Let's talk about your companions' personalities for a bit. Age of Decadence was not a party-based game and although it featured a couple of really memorable NPCs (Miltiades, Benny, lords of Great Houses) realistic relationships with NPCs wasn't - in my opinion - its strongest point.

No arguing here.

Now, with TNW you obviously have chosen to focus on party-interactions and dynamics with our future companions being psychotic paranoics, racists, religious fanatics, and so on. Using your own words, companions will have “their own beliefs, agendas, and personality traits". I assume it's not easy for you as a writer to switch from a lack of party interaction mechanics to writing and thinking through carefully 12 (!) companions at once? Are you sure you could handle and deliver it?

In my arrogance ignorance I don’t really see it as a big deal. I see it as 12 fairly complex NPCs, which, considering the number of NPCs in AoD, is neither a monumental nor radically different task.

Our goal here isn’t to give you 12 lifelong friendships (which IS a monumental task) or deep and meaningful relationships but to give you 12 companions who may or may not make your life easier. Hint: probably not.

Let’s consider a typical RPG premise. You need to do something awesome but very dangerous, so you get yourself some allies with diverse skillsets. A fighter of great renown to hold the forces of evil at bay. A nimble thief to sneak in and out and open chests ripe with loot. A bearded wizard, perhaps, to cast a spell or two and shout “You shall not pass!” when an opportunity presents itself.

In a typical RPG these compadres are loyal to a fault and accept your leadership without hesitation. In reality, this situation might play out a bit different.

Imagine you want to do something profitable but very dangerous in real life. You need some muscle, so you hire a guy who did some time for murder (a fighter of great renown!), a guy who robbed a few banks (a nimble thief!), and a neckbeard who claims to be a hacker (a bearded wizard!). Hardly a fellowship you had in mind. You still need them but the odds that things will go the way you imagined are fairly low.

Throw in the above mentioned different personality traits, religious beliefs or intolerance, and agendas, and you have the full picture.

That’s the goal and I’m pretty sure we can do that.

8 I'd like to elaborate a little on what I meant by 'party interactions'. How big of a role would our companions' alignment and personal quirks have during the game? Let's assume you have a religious fanatic and a man who hate them in your party. Will they stand each other? Would they want to kill each other on sight or after some replies?

It depends on their personalities. At best they’d refuse to work together, at worst you’d have to pick sides and one of them would end up dead. It’s a bit more complex than that though.

Let’s say you run into a wounded man preparing for his last stand. A rival gang of scavengers is looking for him. He asks you to help him, offering to share something valuable with you.

If you have Evans with you, he’d say that it’s too dangerous and the reward isn’t worth it. If you insist, he’ll leave you and you’d have to defend your new friend all by yourself (or follow Evans). If you have Garrett with you, he’ll shoot the man and take all he had (he’s a practical man). If you have Jed with you, he’d see a business opportunity and offer to trade the man to the other crew, etc.

9 Will one's loyalty depend on their 'nemesis' place in a party? Do you plan to include that kind of stuff for each of 12?

They are as loyal to you as an average employee is loyal to his boss. In other words they will stay with you for as long as it benefits them and not a moment longer. If you do something that breaches this fragile social contract (be it hiring a mutant freak, working for a faction they despise, acting against the Church, etc) they will leave you or double-cross you.

In most cases you’d know exactly what rubs them the wrong way, so it would rarely come as a surprise. Basically, if you travel with a machinegun-toting preacher and a Brotherhood-hating Protector Officer, and then decide to side with the Brotherhood in some quest and kill a few Churchmen, you shouldn’t be surprised when your companions turn on you.

10 We already know your passion for non-linear gameplay and replayability, so I assume The New World will preach the same approach: not a 100-hour long playthrough allowing to to everything you want with a single character/party but short one, featuring tons of self-excluding branches and requiring a couple of playthroughs to fully grasp the game's advantages?

Correct. We prefer shorter but very replayable games to 100 hours epics that you play only once. Basically, to create your own story, you need to be able to make meaningful choices. Meaningful choices require branching storylines, aka mutually exclusive content. Mutually exclusive content means shorter games as the overall amount of content is split between different paths and branches.

11 Let's talk stealth. It was seldomly used in Age of Decadence (some players might not have even noticed it unless they played a thief or an assassin, I guess) but you decided to have it as a part of a main 'trio' of viable playthrough types. What prompted you to that? Are you a fan of stealth games in general?

I do like stealth games but the main reason is that stealth is a traditional RPG element and a must-have when it comes to multiple quest solutions: fight, sneak/steal, talk.

We didn’t have a proper stealth system in AoD because we didn’t have time to implement it (to be more specific, we didn’t have it when we started putting the game together and then it was too late to add it and rework all existing quests). We did have plans for a turn-based stealth system and now we can finally do it and offer our players a well-rounded experience.

12 Age of Decadence featured a great number of endings, underlining most of our deeds, making them worth it and encouraging to try other routes to see the outcome. What's the estimated number of endings you're aiming to implement in The New World?

So far, the main quest calls for seven endings, without counting permutations.

13 Both old Fallouts and Baldur's Gates featured random encounters, but Age of Decadence completely ignores this as a gameplay element. Do you think that all "playthrough path" should be directed and thought through in advance by the game designer? Do you allow "unforseen" player actions in a game?

Mainly it was done to ensure that a non-combat character was never forced to fight unless it’s a direct result of his/her past choices. We don’t have such design restrictions in The New World but I’m not sure if that’s something we want to do.

In BG it was nothing but filler combat: “You’ve been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself!” /fight generic enemies. Fallout had a mix of amusing encounters and filler combat. Not sure if anyone was excited to run into a bunch of rats for the tenth time or yet another Enclave patrol.

From the design perspective, we’d rather do an encounter that fits the time and the place rather than something random.

14 What's with your draw to the universes that survived the degradation? Is it just the useful trick to present the high-tech artefacts in place of fantasy settings' magic?

It’s not about high-tech baubles but about how people view the past, how this view changes with every generation because each generation has its own narrative and wants to force the past to fit said narrative (instead of the other way around).

While the actual events remain the same, our understanding of what happened and why mutates into something that would be barely recognizable by those who witnessed these events.

Anyway, while many ‘generation ship’ books feature regressed societies, often unaware that they live in a spaceship, it’s not the case in The New World. So no science-magic there.

15 What's more suitable for the RPG: utopia or dystopia?

Dystopia, of course. Utopia implies that all problems have been solved and there is no longer any need for mighty heroes eager to slay 5 wolves or deliver important packages.

16 Main quest. Some people like to do the side-quests first, delaying touching the main quest till the last possible moment and some jump straight to it, right until the point of no return. What approach do you have in mind designing the main quest for your game?

We’ll go with a chapter structure again. For example, when you start the game, you’ll have 4 locations available to you: the Pit (container town), the Factory, the Hydroponics, and the Armory. Your main quest goal is the Armory but to get there you’ll have to increase your skills first.

Other locations won’t be magically sealed but to get through the Wasteland will require much higher skills and to get into the Habitat will require a reason (for the guards to let you in), which the Armory will provide. All locations are interconnected (unlike AoD), so once you cross the Wasteland, other locations will open up, etc.

How hard it is to think of all the possible ways people would interact with it?

We try to offer as many options as we can and pray it will be enough.

17 Will we ever get a chance to somehow actually witness ship's landing?

It’s one of the endings. You asked…

18 Name 3 biggest mistakes current RPG developers (both indie and AAA) make while developing their games? Including your own if you'd like :)

Such things are awfully subjective. I didn’t really like Legend of Grimrock that much, but I loved Legend of Grimrock 2 because they went open-world and did it really well, in my opinion. Yet LoG2 sold a third of what the first game sold and some people believe that the open world thing is to blame. So one man’s design mistake is another man’s best design ever.

As for our mistakes, the list is long so it won’t be hard to pick top 3:

We balanced combat around ‘specialists’, which made playing a ‘hybrid’ the hardest difficulty mode. The idea was that the players would beat the game with a specialist first and then play with a more balanced but more challenging character. Turned out everyone wants to play a hybrid but not everyone can figure out the combat system on the fly. That’s why “too difficult, can’t play it” is the #1 complaint.

To be clear, the mistake isn’t that the game is too difficult but that playing a hybrid character (fighter/talker) is nearly impossible for the first time players.

Inverted difficulty. Teron is the hardest town, mainly because your skills are low and your gear is shit. As you progress, the game gets easier and easier because your skills and gear improve but you’re still dealing with human enemies (whereas in most RPGs you’d have switched to higher level monsters a long time ago). Granted, there is a difference between some low level thugs/guards and highly skilled soldiers but that difference only goes so far.

Not enough content in Ganezzar (the third town). While Ganezzar has as many faction and side quests as any other town (and even has the siege event), most players walk away with an impression that there isn’t enough content. Why?

We underestimated the amount of content it would require in general. Ganezzar could have absorbed twice as much content without making you feel overwhelmed;

We overlooked the fact that many side quests required certain past events like making a deal with Marcus Valla to get the power armor, surviving Miltiades’ attempts to kill you and then saving his ass in Maadoran and helping him, etc.

Worst of all, we made an easy to miss 5-quest fork, instead of adding five stand-alone quests available to everyone. As a result, if you missed the fork and didn’t do the pre-requisites for other quests in Teron and Maadoran, you will have fewer quests available, especially if you were kicked out from your faction.

19 Was there a feature you noticed in other RPG or game of other genre after the release of Age of Decadence that resulted in a thought 'Damn, we should have done that as well!"?

Not really. After 10 years of work we couldn’t think – even subconsciously – about adding new features. Even from a ‘what if’ perspective, what if we had an extra year, we would have focused on improving what we had (see above) rather than adding new things.

We’re fairly conservative as a studio and our focus is on story-telling and role-playing (playing the game in a manner fitting your character) rather than cool new features.

20 Regarding the chapter structure. Will some players be able to reach certain locations earlier than others by completing certain tasks or finding some secret routes? Would they get some benefits from it?

Absolutely. There are different ways through some locations (for example, when you travel through the Factory, you can take the toll road (through the upper floors) which is safe and linear, better suited for the talkers and weaker parties, or you can go down and brave the dangers and find things and access points that others wouldn’t. If you’re really good at it, you would even be able to get into the Habitat before breaking into the Armory.

AoD was weak on exploration so that’s another thing we want to focus on here.

21 Speaking of secret routes - have you considered breaking the 4th wall and place some AoD-related Easter Eggs in your next game? ;)

It’s not something we would consider.

22 Thanks for brilliant and self-critical review of AoD mistakes, Vince. Boy, I’m glad you acknowledge all of this and actually researched players’ opinions on your game! More developers should spend time doing it. Can't wait to see how you overcome these downsides in The New World!

But if you don't mind, I want to clarify what I intended by asking that question. I was hoping you'd share some thoughts on the current state of the RPG industry - what's your biggest gripe with it in general and its AAA headliners particularly? Don't you think they strayed SO off from the genre's roots and focused so much on irrelevant shit stuff like romancing and crafting, they don't know how to make an actual RPG anymore? Could or should they change their attitude regarding the genre to get back the trust of such communities as RPG Codex?


The gaming industry IS an industry first and foremost. If they “strayed” into romances and crafting, it’s because the customers demanded it. Case in point – Fallout 4. For me it’s one of the worst Bethesda games, for Bethesda it’s the most successful game to-date. Should they make an “actual RPG” and sell a million copies or should they make a crafting game with stats and sell thirty million copies? Decisions, decisions…

It’s not just about money. If you have 200 employees like, say, Obsidian, and your burn rate is a million dollars a month, you HAVE to make games that sell or you will be out of business in no time.

The problem is that ‘actual RPGs’ never sold well, not compared to action games, which is why they nearly went extinct in the early nineties. The genre was revived reanimated by two games: Diablo, which launched the action RPG genre, and Baldur’s Gate, originally designed as an RTS. That was the only way to make it work, by merging stats with action and moving

So as a developer you have a choice: stay small and make low budget games without any restrictions or hire more people to boost production values but then you have to ensure that your game sells enough to cover the costs and keep all these people employed.

Fortunately, due to the digital distribution in general and Steam in particular, we can have all three: AAA companies pouring hundreds of millions into their games, tiny indie studios working on pure enthusiasm, and mid-range companies like Harebrained and inXile, which really is the best outcome for the gamers.

23 Why squares and not hexes?

First, we can’t adapt AoD/DR pathfinder to hexes, so we'll have to write a new one, which is potentially months of work, so there is a practical reason. Second, squares work better with busy ‘urban’ maps (XCOM, Xenonauts, etc) whereas hexes work better with large, generic battlefields (HoMM, Battle Brothers, etc).

24 What do you think is more important: the fate of player's hero, fate of the world or fate of game's factions?

Depends on the setting. In Planescape: Torment, it’s your character’s fate that really matters. It’s clear that neither the factions nor the world would really change, which even adds some charm to the game.

Same goes for futuristic games like cyberpunk. Expecting your character to change a well-established world or even the corporate factions is kinda foolish. Thus in most cases the fate of your character is all you have to work with.

The crumbling world of AoD or the confined space of The New World is a different story. We can easily hit all three targets, but such worlds come with their own limits. Overall, it’s a cascading effect: your character affects the factions, the factions affect the world, all these changes affect your character.

25 In AoD our character was being constantly involved in some serious business and sometimes is thrown into heavily-scripted chain of events, like in a vortex. Which results in player having little space and time to roam the world, explore it and sink in all the little details. What are your thoughts on games like Morrowind, that players not simply play through, but actually live in?

You mean Daggerfall? Love it; it has a permanent seat on my top 10 list. Morrowind wasn’t bad either but it was dumbed down in every way to make it sellable. Of course, compared to Oblivion, it’s a masterpiece but then again what isn’t?

Anyway, that’s what I love the most about RPGs – it’s a very diverse genre like a middle-eastern bazaar where you can find anything you wish: sandbox, stealth, story-driven, tactical, strategy, action, blobber, roguelike, etc. Want to save the world? Come this way. Want to manage your own mercenary company? I might have something for you but I can’t find the damn legs…

26 Our forum features different kinds of RPG fans and the most common discussion we have on a regular basis is whether or not should RPGs have "walls of text".

What heresy is this?

Some prefer to have tons of dialogues with branches of replies to choose from for roleplay and some - to just roam the world doing whatever they can for the same purpose - roleplaying.

You mean, roam the world looking for something to kill? Don’t get me wrong, I love sandbox games, but their main weakness is repetitive, generic content which doesn’t leave much room for role-playing unless you happened to be playing fighter/mage/thief.

The downside of the latter being difficulty of roleplaying as a non-combat character and a downside of a former - selection only between pre-written replies. What are your thoughts on that matter? Is there any way to morph these RPG types into a single, ultimate one?

Not in the near future. These two types represent diametrically opposite designs. At one end of the spectrum we have hand-crafted content, limited by definition and contained within a story arc which the player must follow.

At the other end of the spectrum we have practically limitless generic content spread across a vast land mass, which makes it possible to sink in a few hundred hours, provided you don’t mind “running around and killing things”, which is what fantasy is all about, according to Todd Howard.

Take any sandbox RPG – The Elder Scrolls games, the new Fallout games, Gothic, Risen, Witcher 3, etc. No matter how good the overall design is, the fact remains that 90% of your time is spent “killing things” and looking for loot.

It’s quality vs quantity, except the quality is served in a limited and restricted fashion, whereas quantity comes with unlimited freedom to run around and kill things. Of course, the real quality in sandbox games is the visual splendor, which has been the most important gameplay aspect in the last 15 years. As long as we’re dazzled and entertained, we don’t mind killing things and playing dress-up.

I'd like to thank you for this massive, glorious amount of insight, Vince! I suppose there are two main categories of people awaiting TNW - fans of AoD, who already know about your capabilities and have high hopes for it, and people who disliked AoD or haven't played it at all but for some reason TNW appeals to them. Now, the first group is obviously easy to pleasure but what would you like to address to either or both of them?

Try the demo?

Thank you very much, Vince!

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Dear Age of Decadence fans, I have a humble personal request for you - if you liked a game, please spend a few minutes and write a review for the game; even one sentence is enough! It'll take you only a few minutes but it'll be of great help for the developers!
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Goral

Arcane
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The Real Fanboy
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ps.gif
Dear Age of Decadence fans, I have a humble personal request for you - if you liked a game, please spend a few minutes and write a review for the game; even one sentence is enough! It'll take you only a few minutes but it'll be of great help for the developers!
nice.gif

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Dear Infinitron, I have a humble personal request for you - post one of the VD interviews on news page
nice.gif
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Black Angel

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Trying to read between the lines, and also still wondering what does VD really meant by this:
For every person who was able to kill everything that moved there were hundreds of players who struggled and a few dozen who failed to kill anything at all. The #1 complaint is “combat is too difficult”, so we aren’t in a rush to make The New World more difficult.
And also because this:
We balanced combat around ‘specialists’, which made playing a ‘hybrid’ the hardest difficulty mode. The idea was that the players would beat the game with a specialist first and then play with a more balanced but more challenging character. Turned out everyone wants to play a hybrid but not everyone can figure out the combat system on the fly. That’s why “too difficult, can’t play it” is the #1 complaint.
Is seen as a 'mistake', I kind of get an impression that they're going to generally streamline the previous experience. Hopefully, I'm wrong, that with the new approach and the new system they're going to improve the best they've done and offer proper experience previously missing in AoD/DR (like proper stealth system and exploration).

Having said that, I really, REALLY like most of what I've read in this interview. :salute:to Lexxx20, and Vault Dweller and co.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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Trying to read between the lines, and also still wondering what does VD really meant by this:
For every person who was able to kill everything that moved there were hundreds of players who struggled and a few dozen who failed to kill anything at all. The #1 complaint is “combat is too difficult”, so we aren’t in a rush to make The New World more difficult.
And also because this:
We balanced combat around ‘specialists’, which made playing a ‘hybrid’ the hardest difficulty mode. The idea was that the players would beat the game with a specialist first and then play with a more balanced but more challenging character. Turned out everyone wants to play a hybrid but not everyone can figure out the combat system on the fly. That’s why “too difficult, can’t play it” is the #1 complaint.
Is seen as a 'mistake', I kind of get an impression that they're going to generally streamline the previous experience.
Definitely not.

The fact is, you couldn't play a hybrid as your first character. You HAD to play as a specialist first. This is what I consider a mistake on our part, not the fact that so many people complained that the game is too difficult. We should have balanced it around the hybrids and offered special content for the specialists as a reward.
 

Black Angel

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The fact is, you couldn't play a hybrid as your first character. You HAD to play as a specialist first. This is what I consider a mistake on our part, not the fact that so many people complained that the game is too difficult. We should have balanced it around the hybrids and offered special content for the specialists as a reward.
It's nice to have the game to tailor to both kind of builds, but there's nothing inherently wrong about the game balanced around playing as a specialist first, then do hybrids in the next ones like D_X mentioned above.

Although, seeing you wording it that way (balanced around hybrids, and specialists getting special content) seems like the best way to make the game, so I'm 100% for that. However, I can already smell and see the amount of people and casuals pulling their hairs in stress over the fact that they tried making hybrid to experience everything in one playthrough, only to find out some, if not many content, are locked to their character because they're not specialists :smug:
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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The fact is, you couldn't play a hybrid as your first character. You HAD to play as a specialist first. This is what I consider a mistake on our part, not the fact that so many people complained that the game is too difficult. We should have balanced it around the hybrids and offered special content for the specialists as a reward.
Isn't that a bit ass backwards? First you play a specialized character so you have an easy time with a part of the game and make a hybrid after when you have a better understanding of the system and what skills are needed and when?
That was the idea but the empirical evidence has proven it wrong. 99% of our playerbase want to play a hybrid to be able to do more, which isn't the same as being a master of every guild. We can ignore it and insist that everyone plays a specialist first or we can make design adjustment.

The fact is, you couldn't play a hybrid as your first character. You HAD to play as a specialist first. This is what I consider a mistake on our part, not the fact that so many people complained that the game is too difficult. We should have balanced it around the hybrids and offered special content for the specialists as a reward.
It's nice to have the game to tailor to both kind of builds, but there's nothing inherently wrong about the game balanced around playing as a specialist first, then do hybrids in the next ones like D_X mentioned above.
There's nothing inheritenly wrong with it but that's not how most people want to play AoD. I don't mean the casual gamers or people who want to win fights by clicking on enemies but people who are our target audience.

However, I can already smell and see the amount of people and casuals pulling their hairs in stress over the fact that they tried making hybrid to experience everything in one playthrough, only to find out some, if not many content, are locked to their character because they're not specialists :smug:
That's fine.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
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San Isidro, Argentina
I think that one of the issues is that the guild questlines became the meat of the game, and they were tailored around specialists. So we had an "open ended" character system, with lots of skills and limited skill points pool, but the majority of the quests tailored to specialists, which made use of 5-6 skills of the 23 skills we have.

For this game, the relationship between the character system and the quests will be much more consistent.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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Infinitron Might want to put the spoiler from the interview in a Codex spoiler box.

Vault Dweller What is this
Worst of all, we made an easy to miss 5-quest fork, instead of adding five stand-alone quests available to everyone.
about? The initial faction choice?
Hector/Darganus quests in Ganezzar.

Thinking about it, I have extra question: do you have data what players tried first? As in warrior/thief/drifter?
No.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
The problem is when you choose to be a specialist you practically have no choices. It's pretty clear then which actions to choose. Pretty bad for a game that was advertised being all about choices and consequences. People expect the c&c already available in a single playthrough (taking one choice which excludes another choice and not bringing you instant death as the only other consequence instead).
 

PlanHex

Arcane
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How about steam? Dont know much about boundaries of its achievement system. Is it possible to get statistics of what was first achievement to unlock?
It's at least possible to see which were the more popular:
http://steamcommunity.com/stats/230070/achievements/
Might be that most people started out as merc/assasssin/loremaster since they're at the top?
Though it might just be that they're often chosen when replaying of course. People who looked at guides could go for a merc start when joining thieves explaining why thief is at the bottom and merc is at the top.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
The problem is when you choose to be a specialist you practically have no choices. It's pretty clear then which actions to choose. Pretty bad for a game that was advertised being all about choices and consequences. People expect the c&c already available in a single playthrough (taking one choice which excludes another choice and not bringing you instant death as the only other consequence instead).
When it comes to multiple solutions, sure, but these aren't the only choices in the game.
 
Self-Ejected

Drog Black Tooth

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Feb 20, 2008
Messages
2,636
Can't wait to play my "die over 9000 times to figure out the EXACT stats needed to proceed" RPG except this time with a sci-fi reskin. I mean, relying on meta-knowledge as a fake difficulty crutch is so hardcore!

Get HYPED for VD's next bout of autism.
 

Quantomas

Savant
Joined
Jun 9, 2017
Messages
260
The max content build is a more complex issue, driven by the player’s desire to get more content in the course of one game, which requires a whole lot of meta-gaming and a carefully researched build, calibrated down to the last skill point. Needless to say it’s not a fun way to play the game.
In principle, if you have played a number of good RPGs, you have a fair understanding what skills and types of builds allow you to reach more content. Sometimes a game surprises you and requires you to rethink your approach once you have progressed a bit. That's typically a good point for a restart with a different build while the game still feels fresh and new. The chance for the devs here is to signal to the player that they have reached a good point for a restart.

Whether it's fun depends entirely on you. It's completely in-character to go about exploring the game world systematically and learning what you can do before actually doing it. It may seem meta-gamey if you try to avoid triggers and merely learn about any quest available before actually choosing one to pursue. But you can perfectly do it without breaking the 4th wall, in-game you simply expand your options available until you feel ready to go with the one you like best. It's slow and methodical but perfectly valid roleplaying. I did that with Tides of Numenera and ended up with a playthrough lasting 140 hours without dawdling. The quests were outstanding and the mere design, with the promise of you altering anchor points of the reality, grand. If the visuals are interesting/pleasing and the soundscape good, it's time well spent. My main complaint was that the main story is too monolithic and doesn't budge.

The design of the TNW main story seems better suited to such an approach, if the seven distinctive endings are a valid indicator.

Infinitron I agree with the others that this interview has to hit the front-page. The insights it offers are way too good. Codexers may know how to find it. But casual readers who just check the RPG Codex as a games news site will miss it.
 
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Goral

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
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Poland
Infinitron I agree with the others that this interview has to hit the front-page. The insights it offers are way too good. Codexers may know how to find it. But casual readers who just check the RPG Codex as a games news site will miss it.
That's at least a 3rd interview with him in the last 2 months that hasn't hit the news page even though we've had boring interviews with some idiots like Sawyer or worse. So what's the reason Tron? His avatar not being kosher?
 

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